a bibliophile's dream

Pakistan is a bibliophile's dream. A country with a high illitricy rate, inhibits the most magical places of storing, selling and hiding books in catacomb like shops that are overcrowded with foliants until the very ceiling.

There are places for new books like the beautiful Saeed book bank in Islamabad: a two storey book shop with extra sections for books about Pakistan and Afghanistan, innumerous magazines of bridal-clothing, best-sellers and lonely planet books.

And then there are the 'Old book'-shops. Shops crammed full with old second hand books and reprints of the original version.

What both book shops have in common: cheap books to a minimum share of the european price. How can someone, who loves books, adores reading and melts away for the feeling of holding a book and turning the paper pages, say no to that?

Well....I couldn't. I bought, I read, I collected....and had to post 27kg books home to Germany. Two good friends of mine summed it up in: „You're lucky that it were JUST 27 kg and not more.“ and in the wish of „I hope that you might rent one of these cheap appartments in Berlin with a high ceiling to start your own private library.“

The picture shows the packing at the GPO (general post office), where the books (and other 13kg of belongings) were checked, sewed into clothes that got hand stitched and ceiled with red candle like drips onto the cloth, before I had to attach passport and visa copies (also sewed onto the package).

I'm still thinking I should have added an 'excuse me'-letter and some present for the post man who will have to carry it several stairs in the Berlin appartements of the friends who'll receive the huge packages. Would you have condemned me if you were the post (wo)man?

When and how does a new year begin?

One of the most important questions at the end of the year in Europe seems to be, where you celebrate with whom New Years, while wearing what and shooting how many christmas crackers in the air.

In Pakistan there are no dirty streets caused by new year's fire crackers, no drunken party guests stumbling over the left overs of yesterday's party: the islamic year has begun two weeks earlier, is regulated by the moon and not even a great cause of joy and partying: it is Muharram

In the first ten days of Muharram, the shiits are celebrating one of their biggest mourning festivities, the ashura rites, in which they remember the death of imam Al Husain in the battle of Kerbela.

I went for these celebrations to Lahore, the border city to India, where huge processions of people walked through the streets, chanting songs and cutting themselves with knives. With hurting themselves they demonstrate their belief and support for imam Husain and show the suffering he went through aswell. What seems strange to outsiders and even to Sunnis (the other main sect in Islam), is of essential base in the Shia belief. It reminded me of the self flagellation in the christian belief, which was mainly practiced in the 16^th century for getting rid of the worldly demands.

We watched it from above, sitting on the roof top of a house and were invited afterwards for some food and a chai by the people who had let us on the roof top of the houses. The festivity was filmed and observed closely as the days of Muharram seem to be riot prone or sectarian violence. Sad enough that a bomb, detonating in Karachi on the Muharram festivity, triggered such sectarian violence.

Our visit to Lahore, aswell as the New Years Evening in Islamabad stayed calm. No fire crackers, no acted or true violence. Two old and two new years. And more to come.

christmas cake

Pakistan is a country with a rather small population of a religious group, which is called christians. Christians follow a 2000 year old beliefsystem, which is based on a singel deity, whom they call “god“. They belief that he has send his “son“ onto a small and rather unimportant planet called “earth“ to rescue the people, spread some love and do a lot of wonders. Although the spreading of this religion hasn't always been as peaceful as the messages conveyed through the “son“ (whom they call Jesus), the arrival of him is still being celebrated in many places of the planet earth.

Despite the fact that there aren't so many christians living in a state which claims to inhibit mainly muslims, the date of the arrival of the son (christmas) was more than consciously in the minds of the people around me. And as they considered me a follower of christianity, tons of christmas-messages arrived on that day in my phone, wishing a happy christmas day. An electronic dancing Weihnachtsmann greeted me at the entrance of the bakery and the uni had a day off due to christmas. It made me a lot thinking how many german christians in my home country would be conscious about celebrations like Eid and would congratulate their muslim fellow citizens?!


As my pakistani family had never celebrated christmas before, they were eager to get to know how christmas was celebrated with my family in Germany. So we decided to make a christmas party and went out to buy loads of food. On the way we stopped at the bakery: I should decide on the christmas cake. Christmas cake?!? That was new to me! But the family was of the firm belief that a christmas cake would belong to a real christmas celebration.

If you want to picture our christmas party: take loads of food (a 'german' potato soup and a great feast of pakistani yummy food of the best pakistani cook I know (my pakistani mom)), the most different people that you can imagine (from an old army officer, a young guy who always pushes to his limits and learns the art of diplomacy by pulling back and an anti-drug officer) and let them meet in an art school somewhere in a war torn country as Pakistan is right now. No snow, no going to church, but friendship, laughter and christmas cake.

Home? Where is home?

Is it made? Does it come along without us doing something for it or do we have to create it? Is it connection, rhythm, knowing? Is it where you are born or where you choose to live? Is it a smell, a taste, a feeling? How constant is it? Can I find it in myself? Is the outside just a reflection of my inner feeling of being at home with myself? Can it be anywhere, in any country, in a hotel room, a candle lit hut, under a tree, in a renovated room in Berlin, on the road between here and nowhere?

I sometimes listen to myself using the word in different contexts. Sometimes even after a day at a friend's place when asking him if „we want to go home“, meaning: to go to his place, which is a home for him and has become one for me.

I started feeling at home in Pakistan. In Rawalpindi. In old Lalazar, near the Tulsa Road. It maybe came when I started to know the route for the taxi at night, when I knew which chowk to turn at and when the tailors in the next street open in the morning. Maybe it began the day when I didn't think about the strange fact any more that I was in Pakistan, going to a foreign university, but just grabbed my stuff and ran out of the house, draping my dupata around me, thinking about which uni text I had forgotten to read.

Home is a rhythm of coming and going. The smell of paint. The taste of pharatha, egg-omlett and chai in the morning. The hugs from people I love. Juggling at night in my room, watching the lights of the nightly Rawalpindi out in the window reflections. Talking with the taxi drivers in Urdu. Enduring hours of not wanting to be there, to do this and that and at the end finding out that I just loved it. Just the way it was.